Last year, despite my good intentions, my garden really got away from me. When my mom showed up in September, the weeds were taller than the plants, the pots of herbs were bone dry, and mulching was not a concept I was familiar with. She went all Super Gardener on everything, and when she left a few days later I had a neatly mulched weed-free garden all trimmed up for fall, and two new flower beds in front of the house.

But still I was fully prepared for this year to be a total wash. Again. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a gardener after all, I thought. But then it started to get warm. Snow disappeared from the 10-day forecast. Little bits of green started to poke up through dirt.

Magic began happening in my yard.

Seriously y'all. PERENNIALS ARE MAGIC. Suddenly I get it.

I sowed a bunch of perennial seeds last May, but I felt like it was a waste, because they wouldn't bloom the first year. They just looked green and raggedy all summer and never looked very pretty.

My mom shared a bunch of transplants from her gorgeous garden, but they never looked very healthy in my yard.

I spent $15 on a single plant (clematis) and it only had one flower all summer.

Flash forward 9 months, and all those perennials-from-seed that were a "waste" have buds on them. My mom's transplants look strong and healthy. My clematis is bursting with gorgeous blooms. The peony I planted is back with three times as many buds. A strawberry plant has come back in one of my totally neglected pots (truly the biggest miracle of all in my garden this year) and there are little baby strawberries all over it. I mean, what? MAGIC, I TELL YOU.

It turns out a year is not that much time. I have been so used to signing a new apartment lease every year, that thinking about this yard as somewhere I will be working for five, ten, fifteen years was beyond my brain's capacity. But now, planting a peony rhizome that will certainly not do anything worth looking at for at least a year feels like intentionally hiding a $50 bill in my coat pocket as I pack it away after winter. Suddenly, I don't feel like I have to have ALL THE PLANTS right now, because I'll do a little this year and a little next year and every year I'll get to watch a little more magic poke up from the dirt in April.

Last year, I learned some things I like and am doing more of the same. The terrible neverending winter broke my big beautiful lavender plant, so I replaced it. I loved my peony plant last year, so I bought another. Same for my clematis. And at the end of last summer, the only thing that still looked beautiful in my garden was the zinnia plant, so I planted six this year.

I'm also trying a few new things. I've loved dahlias ever since I stumbled on a dahlia flower show in Chicago. Mine probably won't be quite so magnificent, but the package promised "dinner-plate sized flowers" so you never know. I planted some butterfly weed to provide food for larval monarch butterflies. I'm putting some herbs in the ground instead of in pots. (Lower maintenance for the win!)

Who knows, maybe come September everything will look just as ragged and sad as it did last year. But I'm going to try to be less discouraged by it, because now I've learned the secret: spring comes back every year.

When I buy plants at the store (as opposed to starting them from seed) I don't feel like they're mine until they have new growth or blooms that weren't there when I bought them. That first ripe strawberry a few weeks ago was really exciting, but it was already on the plant when I bought it, so while I was thrilled to eat it, it didn't quite feel like mine.

But! Last night when I walked out to the car, I noticed this runner hanging over the edge of the pot. Then I peeked under the leaves and there were six (!!!) berries growing. I checked the other plant, and there were four more berries!

It's possible ten berries from two plants is not too impressive, but that's not dampening my excitement any. I'm also really happy about the runner, aka future baby strawberry plant, because I'll be able to share my plants with a friend!

I've been able to pick a few fruits from my plants already, and let me tell you it is the best feeling! This beautiful strawberry was actually already on the plant when I bought it, in the form of a tiny fruit bud, so I got to watch it grow and grow. It was early, and now more and more of its brothers are showing up on the plant. The first one tasted great; I am very excited about the impending strawberry bounty!

And here are my very first tomatoes! The plant is laden down with clusters of green tomatoes right now, and I have been checking every day waiting for a hint of red. Yesterday I noticed a couple yellow fruits way in the back, so I double-checked the tag, and surprise! It's a yellow tomato plant! (Specifically, the Sweet'n'Neat tomato plant. A tiny little thing, but bears tons of fruit! No staking required! I am a fan!)

I also clipped a couple sprigs of dill and mint, not so muh because I planned to use them, but more in interest of encouraging growth. I laughed as I carried my tiny little harvest inside in one hand. I often see big garden baskets for sale, always with photographs of the basket completely full of eggplants and tomatoes and lettuce leaves and bell peppers. I'm not exactly there yet.

And then Oscar kept trying to grab the herbs for himself! He sat and watched steadily as I took a few pictures, occasionally trying to sneak a paw in to grab them.

Then I turned my back for five seconds, and the little turd immediately swiped the dill! He chowed down on one clipping and I thought surely he wouldn't like it, but apparently he did because he quickly moved on to the other two.

White string lights, the kind with big round bulbs, have long been a favorite of mine. They were the best detail of my wedding reception, the part that was most perfectly translated from the picture in my brain to real life. This is the picture of my parents' backyard a few weeks before the wedding, the picture that had me practically levitating with excitement:

Last weekend, we got to put them up in our own backyard. As I've mentioned about a million times, our backyard is a long way from good-looking, but these lights make everything so much better. We had a party on Sunday and with the lights up, I wasn't embarrassed about the state of the rest of the yard. I just need a few more years and some careful planning and then maybe ours will look just as rad as my parents'. Maybe.

Every night after Joey goes to sleep there's about 30 minutes of good outside light left, and lately I've been spending those 30 minutes in my yard. Armed with my shears, a pair of gloves, and a pretty clippings bin, I'm slowly tackling nearly a year of neglect and overgrowth.

I'm cutting back dead things, trimming up overgrown alive things, and pulling up endless weeds. It is fun.

I'm marveling at the surprises popping out of the ground constantly. I hardly know what anything is, but luckily I've got practically an army of experienced plant identifiers in my family, so I'm slowly learning, one text message at a time.

There's so much to do before this yard starts to look even vaguely impressive, which some days is really overwhelming to me. But during those thirty minutes every evening, I'm only excited and inspired. When I'm out there, I'm forced to focus on only one small section of the yard at a time, and making that spot look gorgeous feels totally doable.

Going around the yard with my camera and looking for the pretty bits that are already here helps, too.

(ps: that gorgeous, humongous azalea in the first picture? my neighbor's. so not mine. but I'm so happy to share the view with her!)

If you've been around this blog a while, you might recall that around this time every year I write a post about my garden plans. They usually involve grand ambition and dreams of meals entirely from my container garden all summer long. However, if you read through my history of garden posts, you'll notice that never comes to fruition. What actually happens is that I get overwhelmed by my plans of container beans and tomatoes and lettuce, I plant a few pots with doomed seedlings, and I grow a fantastic crop of basil. Every. Year.

This year, this year will be different. (She says, just like she says every year.) No but really. To be honest, I was pretty overwhelmed by our new, huge space and with the time demands of a baby, I figured I just wouldn't mess with a garden at all this year. Pretty sad, huh?

But then I went to Lowe's to buy a closet shelf and it was the first day of spring and it's been so cold and the garden center beckoned. And I couldn't resist buying 5 small plants. And 2 houseplants. (That's how you know it's spring, right? Go to the hardware store for a shelf, leave with a pile of plants and a shovel.)

I decided that to keep from being overwhelmed, I would keep the focus small. There is a tiny garden plot in the corner of our front yard by the driveway, and this year, that is all I will care about. There used to be a massive ugly mound of liriope there, but as of last week, it is gone. (PS, that stuff is really hard to dig up.) And as of this morning, my five little plants are there. (Lavender, 2 phlox plants, saxifraga, and dianthus, for the curious.) It's almost embarrassing right now, how sparse and meager it is.

I also have some seeds to sow there (zinnias! daisies! marigolds!), and I did buy a handful of herb seeds for a small herb garden. (I haven't decided whether it'll be in the ground or in containers. Also, I bought lettuce seeds as a test for our shady backyard, and I randomly got carrot seeds at Target yesterday. I don't know where they'll go yet. You see why I usually get overwhelmed quickly: even when I say I'm keeping my focus small, I end up with plants for 4 different spaces in our yard. But really: herb gardens are kind of low stress anyway (I'm such a pro at basil by now), and the lettuce and carrots will be really fun if they work out, but the little spot by the driveway is my main deal for the year.

I was going to say that the herbs and lettuce and carrots are just little side experiments, but for me right now, it's all an experiment. I've never had a yard. I've never planted things in the ground. I've never had full sun. I've never grown anything successfully except for basil and a few mint plants. Like a proper experimenter, I'll be taking copious notes and carefully tracking progress along the way. Hopefully I have good things to share!

One of the few disappointments about our new house is the backyard. Before we began house hunting, I had grand dreams of a big, sunny backyard where I would grow bushels of veggies every summer. This house does not have that. It had a weedy, overgrown, shady mess of a yard (below a fantastic deck) and I knew my veggies were not going to be coming from there.

But I do love having so many mature trees, and the house is so great in every other way. You can't have everything, right? But still. I am determined to turn that mess into something beautiful. We started by hiring a guy to clean. it. up. He came out and worked some major lawn magic. It's by no means a beautiful back yard, but it's a fresh start. Where before all I could see was a jungle, now we have a blank slate and ideas and possiblities are starting to creep into my head.

(ps: if you live in the area and are want our (handy, affordable) lawn guy's info, let me know!)

Blogland has a lot of perfect DIY tutorials out there. If you believe everything you read, no one ever tries anything and doesn't end up with a perfectly fashionable and stylish result. I am here to cure you of those thoughts.

Our apartment, as great as it is, gets almost no sunlight on the balcony. I attempted a small herb garden last summer, but it didn't do well. I had a brainstorm last month, though, when I realized that our bedroom window does get a ton of light. The only problem is to keep the cats away from whatever burgeoning greens I might have on the sill. I came up the idea to build a hanging shelf that would hold a few pots. Not a lot, but enough to keep me stocked in basil and mint all summer.

My dad sketched out a blueprint for me (I wanted it to hang but not swing, and I didn't know how to do that) and off Chris and I went to Home Depot. I realized I still didn't know what I was doing, so Dad provided some expert advice. (My favorite part was when I asked if the bolts I was using were going to be ok for ceiling mounting. Dad answered, "probably." I said, I'm only asking because it's going to be over our heads while we sleep, and he belly laughed.)

Got my supplies, came home, and started staining the pretty piece of oak I picked out. Over the course of a week I got the wood stained, sealed, and drilled—all set. I bought seeds and potting soil. I went to drill the holes in the ceiling, and surprise! It turns out that under the quarter inch of plaster, our ceiling is made of steel. Behold: a terrible photo of the steel:

So this summer, no basil for me after all. What a disappointment. And what am I going to do with this piece of wood, anyway?

Yesterday, my gardening hero Gayla Trail's newest book was released, and thanks to Amazon, I have a shiny copy on my desk, and so starts my annual garden mania. Last year was pretty much a failure, but this year, I have an idea that will REVOLUTIONIZE the complicated light + cat situation in this apartment. It involves minor construction work, but somehow I already got Chris on board! We'll see how it pans out. For at least a few more weeks, it's all just dreams.

My job is going well so far and I feel good about it. Boy I feel busy, though. I've got a few website projects I'm working on for friends, and between work and those, I am working a pretty full day during the week. I sort of miss my brief period of unemployment, but I don't see myself going back anytime soon. ;) I was used to saving my crafts and sewing for the weekends before, I can get used to it again.

Have you guys seen the show My Cat From Hell? Unless you're also a crazy cat person, you probably haven't. But we love it. People with cats that are completely out of control go on the show to get help from this wacky cat behaviorist named Jackson Galaxy. We really like to watch to get tips on how to deal with our very own cat from hell; although, after seeing some of the insane cats on the show, Battlecat doesn't seem so bad!

ps, guys, if you're having behavior problems with your pet and he or she isn't fixed? TAKE HER TO THE VET AND GET HER FIXED. There—no need to call in a fancy specialist. You're welcome!

Anyway, all of these cats are crazy, but the best part is that Jackson makes all of them better! It's really pretty amazing to watch him.

Today, I think I'm going to give Ali's "Day in the Life" documentation a try. It might be a little boring, but it also might be kind of fun! If I like the results, I'll find a way to include it in this week's Project Life somehow.

I'm Leah. I love making pretty things with fabric, paper, and sometimes, pixels and fonts. These days, though, it's mostly fabric. I live in Alexandria, VA, with my husband Chris and our sons Joey and Teddy. Chris is a musician in The US Army Band "Pershing's Own", and I make quilts and sell them in a little shop.